Testing Info

April 4th, 2012


Dear 405 Families,

As promised, here is a very late in coming curriculum letter. As many of you can imagine, writing narrative reports is quite a time consuming task. It requires a lot of time spent thinking about each of your children and then trying to put those thoughts onto paper in a way that captures who your child is while also providing you with helpful information about next steps we can take to insure that our last months together are productive and positive. And so after that experience it has taken me a bit longer than I had anticipated, getting back to my computer and writing about the goings on in our class. I apologize for that, as I know it is an important link between home and school and one that I want to honor.

So, here is some of what has been going on in our class:

TESTING!! The ELA (English Language Assessment) and the Math tests are right around the corner. I know they are on everybody’s mind – children and adults alike, so I wanted to fill you in on some thoughts I have and what we have been doing in class to get our kids ready. The dates are only one day after our return to school from April Break. I believe this timing to be a serious problem. As much as I don’t believe in high stakes testing, I still believe in setting up our students for success in the face of any challenge. With this belief, we are currently spending time each day on test prep to help prepare our students in a way that doesn’t compromise the rigor of our own units of study.

One important way that we have always prepared students for the test is by giving them long blocks of reading time. All year long we have been giving students a 50-minute period of reading each day. During this reading time I check in with students about many aspects of their reading experiences. For example, I ask students to tell me about what’s going on in a story to make sure they comprehend the text. We may read a section together so that I can check their current fluency. We problem solve around things like, what do you do when you loose track of what’s going on or how to figure out a tricky word.

Students will be expected to focus and read for an extended period of time, each of three days, on this test. (We think it’s about 60 minutes). Giving students long blocks of reading time builds their stamina, which they will need in order to complete the new longer test. But most importantly, it allows students to nurture a love and appreciation of reading – of getting lost in an excellent story, to develop ideas about characters and so on and so on.

The timing of the test puts this powerful exercise at risk. On breaks, many students and families put aside books in order to spend more time with family, traveling, relaxing, etc. These are important things to do over vacation; however, research shows that without repeated practice reading stamina and levels drop - even after a week.

Therefore, we strongly encourage you to consider scheduling reading blocks for your student over April Break. Here are some suggestions:
• Schedule at least 40 minutes of reading in the morning or in the evening every day
• Keep students’ reading time free of multi-tasking and technology: TV, iPods, cell phones, computers, etc. unless they are reading on an e-reader.
• Encourage or help students to vary the reading: non-fiction articles in history, science, newspapers and magazines, poetry and fiction. This is the kind of reading they encounter in school every day as well as on the test.

Enough said! As always, please come talk to me or email me if you have any more questions about this. The best thing we can do for our children at this point (besides rallying and being REALLY VOCAL against high stakes testing) is to relax and not put our anxiety onto our kids. I talk to them in class – I tell them how unimportant we believe testing is, but I want them to do well in everything they try, including the upcoming tests.

And, I tell them that they get to chew special test gum!! Yes, that’s correct! Your child is allowed to bring in gum on the days of the tests. We encourage sharing. I will bring some in too and the chewing is limited to the time they are testing. If your child is not a gum chewer but prefers a hard candy, that’s fine too!

--Lauren